A German court sentenced a Turkish man to more than nine years in jail yesterday for the "honour killing" of his sister, but found two brothers not guilty of conspiring in the murder.

The murder of Hatun Surucu, 23, who was shot several times at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany and sparked intense debate about the conservative nature of a Muslim immigrant community seemingly at odds with mainstream society.

Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Ms Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her five-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives, prosecutors said.

Ayhan Surucu, 20, who confessed to pulling the trigger, was sentenced to nine years and three months, close to the 10-year maximum allowable as he was a minor, aged 18, at the time of the killing.

The judge, Michael Degreif, sitting at the Berlin state court, said: "This young woman, who loved life, was a victim because she lived life as she saw fit, and that's why she was shot by her brother right here among us."

The older brothers, Mutlu, now 26, and Alpaslan, 25, who were accused of aiding Ayhan in the murder but who denied involvement, were found not guilty after the court ruled that the prosecutors had not proved the men had conspired to organise the murder. They cheered briefly on hearing the judgment, while their brother, who said he acted alone, laughed.

Prosecutors said they would appeal against the decision.

Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when some teenage boys at a school with many pupils from immigrant families, and which is near the site of the killing in Berlin's Tempelhof district, reportedly openly applauded the killing, condemning the victim for having lived "like a German".

The case has added fuel to a simmering debate concerning the descendants of the mainly Turkish "guest workers" whose labour helped fuel Germany's post-war "economic miracle" but who remain in many ways foreigners in the country. The Surucu family lived for years in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg but were not "really living in Germany", the judge said.

The case is one of several incidents that have added to concerns that Germany's large immigrant community, many out of work, poorly educated and not holding German citizenship, may be drifting further away from the rest of the country.

As details of the Surucu case emerged over the past year, the trial opened a window on to a world with values alien to most Germans, who since the end of the second world war have prided themselves on having an open, tolerant society.

Eren Unsal, of the Turkish Federation, in Berlin-Brandenburg, which works to foster integration and condemned the murder, said: "It's a view that assumes that what it considers the moral integrity of the woman has to be defended at all costs and sees the honour of the family is the highest good."

There are no reliable statistics on how widespread "honour killing" is, but several cases have been recorded in Germany in recent years.

The Surucu verdict comes just weeks after an uproar at the Ruetli secondary school in the Neukoelln district of Berlin, which has high unemployment and a large Turkish and Arab population. Police were deployed at the school after teachers said they had lost control of fighting pupils.

Politicians from all sides have jumped on the issue with a slew of proposals, including making immigrants take compulsory language training and tests to encourage them to share basic social and cultural values.

Some conservatives, who say "multicultural" policies have encouraged authorities to turn a blind eye to the abuses, have also said that immigrants guilty of serious breaches of German law should be deported. But many experts say the problems have been allowed to build up under governments of all parties, which for a long time acted as though foreigners would one day return home.